Prentis Mill
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- Prentis Mill --- --- --- Prentis Mill - builder of the Atlantic Express Timeline Corrections/clarifications to back story --- --- --- Prentis Mill made money working to build the Atlantic Express train system in Rapture (Ryan doesn't pay for doing nothing). Transit systems (which a good part of the AE was) rarely make fortunes, so Mill likely invested his own Surface made wealth in the building. Eventually, he sold it (as per the Audio Diaries) and still was one of the richest men in Rapture. Clarification of Prentis Mill/AE History : ''' '''1945 - Prentis Mill does the transportation project design for the environment of Ryans planned project (a monorail train that will operate line a subways does between fixed stations). Equipment and track components are built on the surface to be ready for the massive construction traffic needs. 1946 - Prentis Mill's Atlantic Transportation Company starts building RR throughout Rapture, with first lines used to haul cement and aggregates for foundation construction. Maintenance facilities are built to service construction equipment. RR Traffic expands rapidly as local cement works become operational and local building component assembly is done in Port Rapture. Passenger traffic initiates moving workers and new immigrants. 1947 - AE Lines expand outside City. Grand Central Station operating. Commercial centers form on South end of Rapture 1948 - AE Track system converted to Mk2 for remaining new system construction. Older existing tracks gradually converted/upgraded. The AE continues to break records for passengers transiting City. 1951-52 -- Atlantic Express in-city construction ends (majority of workers cut loose) 1952 - Rapture City Building Construction mostly ends (suburbs start to be built). * Kinkaide starts buying up and consolidating local Trolley systems and Bathysphere companies into the Metro system. * Maintenance Junction 17 (an unused/relegated Mk1 repair facility) redeveloped to be "Sinclair Deluxe" as a low rent district (has AE RR access only) 1953 - First economic shakeup, 'Depression' * Prentis Mill puts his Cash reserves into Rapture's banks and there is a Bank Run * Atlantic Express passenger line shut down unable to compete with Metro and has bankruptcy. * AE Freight Service still running, in receivership and is reorganized (as a critical ity infrastructure, maintains its income). * "Short Line" route one of few AE remnants still running passenger service (connects places Bathyspheres and Metro never reached ) * Prentis Mill moves to Sinclair Deluxe (still richest person there from liquidated assets). Plays trains with Short Line. 1959 - Kashmir Incident precipitates another Bank Run. Civil War, - entire economy is disrupted * Prentis Mill killed himself in "Sinclair Deluxe" sometime later * Metro system (including Bathyspheres) damaged and going broke. Bathyspheres locked down. * Sinclair Deluxe accumulates poor as Civil War rages. Squatters refuse to pay. * Sinclair driven out of "Sinclair Deluxe" in unstable times, and Sinclair Deluxe district is renamed "Paupers Drop" 1960 - Ryan killed, Atlas Killed, Jack leaves, Chaos. Time of Factions * Sofia Lamb emerges from Persephone seizing control of adjacent areas using 'the Family', * Several Factions destroy AE lines (and other transportation links) to isolate Lamb's coersion and ambitions. * Short Line continues operating to connect its plaza clusters 1968 - Lamb removed. Eleanor and Delta gone. * 'The Family' in chaos/fragmentation. * A few emergent 'bosses' seize the 'Short Line' to supply from farm district and thus have control of area. 1970 - New Rapture founded and starts rebuilding City infrastructure * Atlantic Express Depot seized from 'the Rapture Family' remnants * Rebuilding of transportation infrastructure under way. . We are not really sure why Prentis Mill was bankrupted, when he put his cash reserves money into the Banks during Rapture's first financial crisis. Would an obviously intelligent businessman make an unsecured loan to the banks (especially when he was doing 'Ryan a Favor')? Even after there was a 'run on the banks', the banks would still hold the security/mortgages on the businesses they had loaned to (Banks unless they have significant government meddling don't make unsecured loans). There did not seem to be a 'stock market' for people to speculate their money on (and investment shares are not as reactive as a stock market is). Prentis Mill would thus own a good chunk of the banks or be transferred the security/mortgages the banks kept when they went into bankruptcy and receivership. Prentis Mill could still get enough money back to still be amongst the richer people in Rapture, especially after the Economy recovered and the properties regained value. The Atlantic Express passenger line had been outcompeted and was not likely to come back, even if Mill had the money to prop it up for a time. The Freight system wasnt as exciting apparently, but did manage to keep operating after receivership and seperation from the passenger business it had been subsidizing. But Prentis Mill did not own it any longer. One of the few lines still running - the "Short Line" which crossed many of the southern districts of the City, only operated because the Metro was never built to most of its stations. Even then, it was a light traffic line running on the remnants of the old style Mk1 system tracks. Prentis Mill's Railroad was a success as a freight hauler, but he never really understood that the City needed a versatile passenger transit system, rather than the the AE being run like a Railroad (just as NYC could not operate with only a subway system). Mill's surface world equivalents were facing the same eventualities, as the US Railroads started to rapidly go out of the passenger business in the 50s. By the time the Atlantic Express trains were again being used for passengers, the Civil War was on, and Ryan basically paid the expenses for his Security Forces to use the AE trains. By that time Prentis Mill was already dead. --- --- --- 'Economic Distress Long Before the Kashmir Incident : ' There apparently was a economic downturn of sorts in Rapture around 1953 and allegedly led to 'Hoovervilles' and squatters and Sinclair 'exploiting' some poor destitute people (by building a Hotel they could afford to live in). Prentis Mill -- allegedly wiped out when asked by Ryan to put money into the banks to stimulate the economy but the banks went bust (leaving him supposedly broke and destined for Paupers Drop ...) Was he stupid enough to put every dime he had into that and not keep enough to live comfortably ??? (Remember this was only a few decades after what happened to banks during the Great Depression, and only an imbecile would have forgotten the lessons learned then.) And wouldn't that leave him owning the banks or their mortgage holdings (allowing him to foreclose and at least get some of his fortune back ???) Prentis Mill resided in Paupers Drop? Or rather the best rooms in the Sinclair Deluxe Hotel ??? He may have fallen from being one of Raptures Kingpins, but he would still have been the 'big man' in Paupers Drop. This Rapture 'Depression' period (1953- 1954) obviously didn't last, as things corrected themselves. ((( Many Players who didn't pay attention in history class, might not realize that Boom & Bust cycles were common in America long before the 'Great Depression' and usually "worked themselves out" MUCH quicker because they were not extended by faulty government intervention. ))) --- --- - --- -- --- . .